Make Money From Home: Selling Homemade Goods

Make Money From Home: Selling Homemade Goods

Do you have a special talent for creating something? Maybe you are great at candlemaking or cardmaking. Well, you can "sell those talents" in online stores to make a little extra! I love these kinds of businesses because people are making and doing what they love as their home business. It's the best of both worlds! Here are some ways to sell your homemade items online.

1. Etsy. Is anyone else as addicted to this as I am? I'm not s huge shopper but I love looking through all the unique items they have for sale! Every sellers has a unique product they are selling and each persons personality shines through. Etsy does charge a percentage for you to sell on their site but I think it's a great professional place to have a little store, so the fee would be worth it.

2. Create Your Own Site. If you want to have a professional site and brand it as your own you can do that by just creating your own site. You can use Blogger as a free platform and then search for professional templates. Most templates are free and there is hundreds of thousands out there to pick from! We currently use Blogger as the platform for our M&D Photography site (although we are switching that one to WordPress) and I use the free Store Envy platform for my Treasures From the Prairie site.

3. Ebay. Ebay isn't the best place to showcase your talents, but it is a place, and it's inexpensive and easy to run an Ebay business. You will have to have all your goods created ahead of time to be able to showcase them and take pictures. The bonus for Ebay is that everyone knows about it and traffic will be high.

When you plan on selling online....create incentives to boost your new sales and to encourage customers to try new things. For example, with every first order on me and my mom's site Treasures, the customer will get a free Lotion Bar or Taco Seasoning Packet. It's simple for us just to add that to the order as a "sample" and hopefully the buyer will like the sample so much they will return to buy more. Also try having sales on your products and offering special discounts. All those encourage buyers to buy more and buy often.

Try and take great pictures of your items for sale. You don't need a great camera, just be sure that you have proper, natural lighting for the pictures and make sure that the item is in focus. Think about a huge online store like Walmart.com, do you think their products would sell half as good if they had some odd picture of each thing, or even no picture at all?

Take advantage of Farmer's Markets, flea markets, and craft fairs. All these are great ways to sell to people that are already interested in buying handmade goods. You may have to pay a small fee for a table or booth but it should be worth it.

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Look at Thrifty Tillamook on FB… you will see that someone has set up a selling/buying point for our little rural area. Some free, some cheap, all local and u-haul mostly, and all cash… See if your local area has a FB sales page.

And consignment shops sometimes – or shops that take consignments. Or run a garage sale type deal once a month or so if your area allows it. (weather permitting)

I used to use Artfire until they got rid of their basic accounts. If you have a lot to sell, the monthly fee might be worth it. GLC crafters mall is another site I’ve used. At one time I saw that Facebook had an online store setting but I never checked it out.

I was wondering what kind of regulations you have to deal with when making homemade food items. Also, do you need to get a seller’s license if you are just selling things as a hobby online? I did just to be safe but I could never really find any info on the requirements when its just a hobby. I’ve done a couple small craft fairs that wouldn’t even let you in if you didn’t have a business license.

Laurie, the food items regulations are different by state. In South Dakota you can sell them without a Food License (which is extremely expensive) as long as you mark the as homemade and that your customers are aware they are homemade in your kitchen. But then that also depends on where you sell them too. For example, you can sell any homemade goods here at the Farmer’s Markets but for certain businesses, if you want to sell in them you are required to have a food license.

In Arizona you can sign up for a Home Baked Goods Program that is good only in this state. You also have to have a food handlers permit and label everything stating that it is homemade, i.e in your home kitchen. Liability insurance is also something to consider too. Hope that helps.

I can’t seem to find your online store on your site here. I remember looking at it and thought you had some great things there. The one thing that would be helpful though if you haven’t done it – is to list ingredients. People who have allergies like myself just cannot purchase things unless we know what is in them. That extra step might make a difference whether someone buys something or not. Just a thought.

Just found your blog through Homestead Community and I like your blog. Especially this article, I had never heard of Heartsy, I just started a etsy storehttp://www.etsy.com/shop/mennonitemom
I am signing up for your newsletter too, I love to can and save money and all of that!

Heidi, I had 99 per ent success using usps.it walks you thru expeidt shipp to average ship least expensive.theres a link on the site you can save I have a usps scale and I use to sell eyeglasses optical goods etc.you can choose to send just standard one price for most places but sometimes price is off, sometimes people like to pick on shipping and they see the prices.i had a on line store 7 years not 24 7 and I made three thousand a year about.just be honest and sometimes I would give a credit to people that shipping. Was slow rarely happened people used and thankful many repeat customers.cust service is always on usps and can help with most questions.hope that helped.sandy

I am thinking about selling some baked goods that I currently have been baking for friends and family just through the holidays. We want to consider this as extra money as we retire. Not sure if Indiana has laws against this. Can anyone help?

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